


burning

by soulofme



Category: GOT7
Genre: Angst, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:01:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22138987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soulofme/pseuds/soulofme
Summary: They don’t run.But Jaebum dreams that they will.
Relationships: Im Jaebum | JB/Mark Tuan
Comments: 1
Kudos: 27





	burning

Mark punches him in the mouth.

There’s a crunch, and then the pain blossoms, jumping from one nerve to the next, spreading like wildfire. Mark’s still got his hand clenched by his side after the impact, his chest heaving, his breaths ragged. Jaebum tastes the blood. He feels it roll over his lip in a tiny river. _Drip, drip, drip_. It falls to the floor, leaving behind red dots.

Mark takes half a step backwards, presses himself against the wall. His eyes are boring holes into Jaebum’s skull. He doesn’t need to look to know Mark’s scared out of his goddamn mind.

His hands are shaking. When Jaebum reaches for them, sees the way they’re split and bruised, he flinches. Mark goes still. Everything is quiet.

So, so quiet.

“Snap out of it.”

There’s pressure on his face, forcing him to look Mark right in his eyes. They’re wide and shiny, and Jaebum thinks again that Mark’s _scared_. They both are. Jaebum doesn’t know how to be anything else.

He lets himself fall. It’s easier that way.

He doesn’t remember walking. He doesn’t remember anything, not even when there’s the warmth of a hand at the base of his neck, keeping him upright, guiding him along. He feels like an obedient puppy, unable to do anything but follow its master’s orders.

Someone catches him when he stumbles. His vision is blurry. There’s blood on his hands, he can’t remember if it’s his or not. Mark’s nails are digging into the skin of his neck. The sharp pinpricks of pain keep him awake.

They pump his stomach.

The lights are bright. So bright that he thinks he’s burning.

Everything is white. The walls. The doctor’s coat. Mark’s face. The sheets beneath him. He closes his eyes and listens to his heart monitor. It lulls him to sleep, in a strange kind of way.

When he opens them next, Mark is gone. Youngjae is there instead, curled up on the seat, with a scratchy-looking blanket wrapped around his shoulders. When Jaebum presses his fingers to his cheek, his skin is cold.

Youngjae’s eyes open slowly. He blinks a few times, staring at Jaebum with this far-away look. Then he sits up, eyes wide.

“You’re awake!”

Jaebum swallows hard.

“They sang along?”

The only thing he can remember is the festival. The crowd. The screams. The way he’d felt, thinking that he finally did _something_. He remembers Mark. He remembers flying.

He remembers the crash, then. The blood. The pills. The way Jinyoung told him to stop being selfish. The way he reminded Jaebum that Mark wasn’t his.

Youngjae takes a while to answer.

“Yeah,” he says carefully. “Everyone did.”

Some more time passes. Jaebum’s in a diner now, one of those twenty-four-hour joints. His system is clean, or so the nurse said. She’d given him a look, something that looked awfully close to disappointment. He wonders how many attempted suicides she sees in a night.

Maybe too many.

Not everyone is here. Because most of them have lives, believe it or not. Not Jaebum. Or Mark, apparently.

Mark’s picking the crust off his sandwich. Jaebum stares down at his coffee. His head’s spinning.

“Jinyoung’s pissed.”

“He always is.”

Mark’s hands pause. His knuckles are bandaged. Jaebum can’t see the raw, angry red flesh hiding beneath.

“Did you really…?” he trails off. Jaebum clenches his teeth.

“Did I _what_ , Mark?”

“Did you really wanna die?”

Jaebum feels himself break, feels the laugh bubble up inside of him and escape before he can stop it.

“Yes.”

His voice wavers, like it always does when he lies.

When Jaebum’s ten, his mother puts him in piano lessons.

She wants to make him a prodigy, someone for his cousins to compete against. She wants to brag about him at family dinners instead of staying silent while her sisters gush about their children.

She wakes him up at the crack of dawn every Saturday. She combs his hair neatly. She folds down the collar of his shirt, hits the knobs of his spine when he slouches.

He doesn’t remember the instructor much. He remembers the way she’d frown when he’d hit the wrong notes, the way she’d sigh when he refused to try.

But more than that, he remembers his mother asking him to play for her as she lay on her death bed.

He remembers the funeral. He remembers her sisters hugging him, his cousins wiping away tears. He remembers his father, patting his shoulder, biting back tears.

He remembers not feeling a damn thing and wanting to be ashamed about it.

When Jaebum is sixteen, he runs away from home. He calls his father from a payphone and listens to him scream on the other line.

“Come home,” his father says. It’s an order. “Don’t be so fucking selfish, Jaebum.”

Selfish.

It hadn’t hurt as much as it should’ve.

There’s blood on Jaebum’s hands again.

He dusts them off, and big, red flakes start falling to the ground like snow. Nothing hurts, but there’s a thick cut on his wrist and everything smells.

He falls and lands against Jinyoung. His expression is unreadable, his body tense. He doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t push Jaebum away.

The blood coagulates. Jaebum images his cells knitting themselves together, rushing to heal. He slides down, down to the ground, and feels the cold bathroom tiles chill him to the bone.

The door opens and Jinyoung leaves. Someone else enters.

“What are you doing?”

“You can see the stars from here,” Jaebum says. “Every single one.”

The window is open, letting the crisp air fill the tiny bathroom. When Mark pokes his head outside, Jaebum imagines he’s searching the sky, staring at all the twinkling lights so far away from them.

“From the goddamn bathroom?” Jinyoung pipes up, from the hallway. He hadn’t left, after all.

“From the goddamn bathroom.”

The door doesn’t have a lock. If Jinyoung really wanted to, he could’ve left it open, open enough that someone else would see, that one of the others would stop Jaebum. But he hadn’t. He’d closed the door. He stayed quiet, even as the blood dribbled down Jaebum’s wrist. He drank his cheap beer.

But then he got Mark.

It’s the only thing that doesn’t make sense. Jaebum leans against the bathtub. It’s wet, but they haven’t showered yet. He’s covered in sweat. There’s adrenaline pulsing through his veins like a heartbeat.

“What did you do?”

Mark’s crouched in front of him, staring down at the red towels with disdain. They’d been white, once. Before Jaebum ruined them.

“Nothing.”

It’s a lie, not even a good one, and Mark knows it. He settles down against Jaebum’s side, runs his long, thin fingers through his hair. He’s warm and soft. Not like Jinyoung. Not like anyone Jaebum’s ever known.

He closes his eyes. Mark holds him tight.

Jaebum meets Park Jinyoung when he’s nineteen.

He’s performing at a lounge, some hole-in-the-wall place that no one’s ever heard of. The crowd is polite, interested enough to give him enough attention that he fools himself into thinking they’re impressed by him. Jaebum sings all the songs he’s ever written. He gets tips. He buys a drink. He sits down at the end of the night and counts his money. It’s enough for a cheap dinner.

His fingers are cramped, and his throat is sore from bitching his frustration. He sees someone making his way towards him, his eyes big and bright.

“You’re good.”

“I’m not.” He’s not trying to be humble. It’s the truth.

“Okay.” There’s a pause. “I’m Jinyoung.”

“Jaebum.”

Jinyoung takes him in. Fixes him up. Gets him a steady gig at his friend’s bar. Makes sure he’s alive.

It’s easy, for a while. Jaebum likes easy.

But then he meets Mark. And absolutely nothing about Mark is _easy_.

Mark and Jinyoung are best friends.

But after Jaebum is brought into the fold, that changes. Jinyoung blames him, even if he won’t say it, even if he smiles at them, even when he suggests that Jaebum joins the band. He says all these nice things, but Jaebum sees the way Jinyoung looks at Mark. Like he’s lost his claim, like someone has replaced his spot in Mark’s life. Like everything will go back to normal, if he can just get rid of Jaebum.

It’s what he’s doing now, as Jaebum paces the room. Outside, there’s screaming. It’s Mark. He’s screaming about Jaebum. There’s Jackson then, telling him to let go. Telling him to give up. Mark defends him. He always does, even when it pisses everyone off.

Even when it pisses Jinyoung off.

The words fade away into silence, the kind of silence that’s oppressive and stifling. The door flings open.

“Get the fuck out.”

It’s Jackson. He acts like Mark’s knight in shining armor. He and Jackson get along well. Jinyoung thinks he’s in love with Mark.

Then again, Jinyoung thinks everyone’s in love with Mark.

“You don’t have to leave,” Jinyoung says, picking disinterestedly at his nails. “I never said you had to.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Jackson growls, stepping towards Jinyoung to get into his face. “You don’t want him here. No one does.”

Jaebum scrubs his hands down his face. His chest aches in the worst kind of way.

“I’ll go.”

“Really?” Jinyoung tilts his head to the side. His eyes are dark. “Just like that?”

“Go, then,” Jackson says again, grabbing Jaebum by the arm. “ _Now_.”

“He’d want you to stay,” Jinyoung mutters, leaning back in his chair. It’s a dirty move. Jaebum’s sure he knows that. “Are you really going to run away, Im Jaebum?”

“Mark doesn’t want _me_.”

Jinyoung doesn’t reply. Jackson’s grip is iron-tight around his bicep. Jaebum imagines it’s slowly cutting off his circulation.

“Don’t fuck with me, man. Go. Get out.”

Jaebum breaks free. Bursts into the living room, where Yugyeom and Mark are playing cards. Mark’s back is to him.

“Tell me to stay.”

He freezes when he hears Jaebum’s voice. Yugyeom looks between them, his eyes quickly darting back and forth.

“Mark. Tell me to stay.”

Yugyeom shifts uneasily. Jaebum grinds his teeth and turns on his heel. When he looks over his shoulder, Mark’s gripping his cards hard enough to bend them.

The night of their first gig, Youngjae’s vomiting in an alleyway. Bambam pats his back, even though he’s frowning, miming gagging every time Youngjae retches.

“I can’t,” Youngjae says, voice tiny. “There’s no way.”

“C’mon,” Bambam tells him, now rubbing his hand in small circles on Youngjae’s back, pressing down against the notches of his spine. “It’s gonna be fine, honest.”

Jaebum and Mark watch them.

“Do you blame him?” Mark asks, so soft that Jaebum almost doesn’t hear him.

“No.”

“Are you nervous?”

“No.”

“Are you telling the truth?” Mark’s voice is sweet like honey, but his lips are curled up at the corners.

 _No_.

Jaebum doesn’t say it. He doesn’t say a goddamn word. Bambam leaves Youngjae, his lips pressed into a thin line.

“He can’t do it,” Bambam says. He kinda smells like puke. “Unless you want him to blow it, he’s not performing.”

“Fucking shit,” someone says behind them. Jackson, maybe. He grabs Mark by the shoulder. “C’mon, man. You gotta help us out.”

Mark’s smile slips away. “I told you. I don’t perform anymore.”

Nobody knows why. Not even Jinyoung.

But Jaebum does. He knows that Mark used music as an escape. That one upon a time, music was who he was. But then he met Jinyoung. And anything he ever dreamed of didn’t matter anymore.

Mark hates music now. But no one knows except Jaebum, and he can’t say anything. Not now. Not ever.

“Don’t be a bitch, Mark.”

Mark rolls his eyes.

He gets on stage. He plays the drums. He’s not anything like Youngjae. He plays like he’s angry. He plays like he’s got something to prove.

He plays like he wants someone to tell him he’s good enough. Jaebum searches Jinyoung’s face, but there’s nothing there. There never usually is.

At the end of it all, Mark’s eyes are shining. When Jaebum looks at him, it’s like looking at an open flame.

And now, he’s burning.

One Saturday in December, Jaebum is screaming his heart out into a microphone, playing guitar until his fingers bleed.

One Saturday in December, his father turns up dead. A robbery gone wrong. No suspects. It’ll end up as another cold case. Nobody fights for his father’s justice because no one gives a shit about him. His mother’s family always hated him. Jaebum always hated him.

Jaebum doesn’t attend the funeral. But he visits the gravesite, just to see. There aren’t any flowers. He’s buried next to Jaebum’s mother. He wonders if they’re finally happy.

He decides neither of them know what happiness is.

He goes home. To Mark and Jinyoung and everyone else.

“Got tired of running?” Jinyoung sneers at him. He shoves at Jaebum’s shoulder but doesn’t get a reaction.

Mark’s standing behind Jinyoung.

“Well?” he whispers, wrenching the door open. “You coming in or what?”

They eat leftover Chinese food on the balcony. It’s cold. Mark’s breath looks like fog when he sighs. Beneath them, the people look like ants. There aren’t any stars out tonight.

“Do you still dream?” Mark asks.

Jaebum swallows a mouthful of dry rice.

“No.” He shakes his head. “All of my dreams died.”

“Mine too,” Mark says. He rests his chin on the palm of his hand. “Maybe we will too.”

“Do you think I’m selfish?” He can hear his father’s voice in his head then. But the more he repeats it to himself, the less it sounds like his father and the more it sounds like Jinyoung.

Mark reaches for him. Jaebum lets him trace the scars on his wrist.

“No,” Mark mumbles.

Jaebum lets the word sink in.

Then, he laughs.

Today, he fucks Mark.

He keeps one hand over Mark’s mouth. It’s hot. They’re sweaty. Mark is so, so quiet. Even now. Even when Jaebum’s above him, inside him, giving it to him. Jaebum thinks of Jinyoung. Wonders if he knows what they’re doing on his bed, in his apartment, right under his nose.

Mark stays with him afterward. Jaebum’s shirt drowns him. He looks so fucking young that Jaebum feels guilty.

When Jinyoung comes home, neither of them move. Jinyoung looks between the two of them, eyes narrowed.

“Having fun?” he asks. His eyes are trained on the bruises blooming along Mark’s bare thighs.

Mark twists away like he’s ashamed. He leaves and then it’s just Jinyoung and Jaebum.

“How long?”

“It doesn’t mean anything.”

Jinyoung almost smiles. “That’s not what I asked.”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know how long you’ve been fucking him?” Jinyoung muses. “I think you’re lying.”

“I think it’s none of your goddamn business.”

The words burst out of him without his permission. Jinyoung blank expression fractures, his eyes going dark and wild. He fists Jaebum’s hair, yanking his head up, forcing him to look him in the eye.

“You’re nobody,” Jinyoung hisses. “Without me, you’re gonna stay that way.”

Jinyoung disappears again. Jaebum finds Mark in the room he shares with Jackson and spoons him, pressing his nose into the fine hair on the back of Mark’s neck. The bed is small. The space between them is smaller.

“Did he hurt you?”

“No,” Jaebum says, though his scalp throbs as if Jinyoung’s still clutching onto a fistful of his hair. “Not enough to matter.”

“He’s mad at me.”

“He’s not.”

“He said he was.”

“He hates me,” Jaebum insists. “Not _you_.”

Mark snorts. “Who said anything about hate?”

He rolls onto his back. He’s still sweaty. Jaebum watches a bead of sweat roll down the side of his cheek. Only, there’s too many droplets to be sweat.

“You’re crying.”

Mark pushes his hand into Jaebum’s face, forcing him away.

“I’m not.”

His voice cracks. He doesn’t sob, but his body shakes. The tears don’t stop. Mark’s expression is blank, even as his face gets wetter and wetter.

Jaebum doesn’t tell him it’s going to be okay because it doesn’t feel like the right time to lie.

The night Jackson kicks him out, Youngjae calls Jaebum. He sounds nervous when Jaebum answers, clearing his throat multiple times before he finally speaks.

“Are you safe?”

“Yes.”

“They don’t know I’m calling,” Youngjae gets out, voice sounding strained. “I’m using a payphone.”

“You should go home, Youngjae.”

“Mark’s gone.” Youngjae pauses, his breaths shaky. “I think he’s looking for you.”

“Gone?”

“They’ll kill him. Jinyoung and Jackson.”

“They won’t kill him,” Jaebum insists. Even then, he can’t be sure.

“Send him home,” Youngjae pleads. “If you find him, send him home.”

Jaebum shuts his eyes. “I have to go.”

“Wait—”

Jaebum doesn’t wait. He feels guilty about it, guilty enough that he stumbles his way behind a dumpster and pukes. An old lady rubs his back and wipes his forehead. She gives him a hot cup of tea.

Jaebum sits on the curb in front of her stand, even long after she closes up for the night. That’s where Mark finds him. It’s so, so late. Or so early, depending on how you think of it.

“Stay.”

The word sounds distant, like it’s coming in from miles away. Jaebum swallows and pretend he can’t taste his own bile anymore.

“Okay, Mark.”

He dances around Mark, at first.

Mark doesn’t notice it. Mark doesn’t notice _him_. If he does, he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t fill in for Youngjae again, but he sticks around because Jinyoung wants him to. Probably.

They’re playing a bar tonight. It’s popular with college students. The applause is deafening. Jaebum turns, and Mark’s looking right at him. Unashamed. Sweat beading along his hairline and running down his neck, face red, a look of awe in his eyes.

Jaebum takes him to the bathroom and kisses him until his lips hurt.

“Move on, Jaebum.”

Bambam says it like he hasn’t tried. Jaebum senses that Jinyoung’s put him up to it.

He tries anyway. Whatever he had with Mark is gone. Jaebum needs to let go. He can’t do what he wants, not this time. Not like he always has.

He’s not surprised. Jinyoung ices him out. Everyone’s too afraid to say anything. Jackson hides Mark away like Jaebum’s a threat to his safety.

Jaebum tells Mark that he deserves someone like Jackson. Someone who saves him from the flames instead of pushing him into them. Someone whole. Someone that isn’t _Jaebum_.

That’s why Mark punched him. That’s why he ended up in the hospital. That’s why he hoped to die, if only for a second, because then everything would be so, so easy.

It hurts. It hurts so much that Jaebum wants to run again. He thinks he might cave in, sooner than later. He wants to apologize. He wants to fix things.

He doesn’t. He stays quiet. He pretends to not care. He loses himself, more than before, to the point that Im Jaebum will never be found again.

He doesn’t move on. Not at all.

They get a new gig. It’s a small warehouse concert. They’re the opening act.

Jaebum is backstage, tuning his guitar. The others are getting ready in their own ways. He pretends to be focused so that he doesn’t look at Mark.

Mark shuffles up to him after a while, standing quietly.

“Be great, Jaebum,” he whispers. Jaebum likes to think he doesn’t imagine the lips that brush against his cheek.

Jaebum stumbles onto the stage. He gets through half a song before he rips the strap off from around his neck and abandons his guitar backstage. He storms off. He doesn’t offer an explanation. He lets everyone else clean up his mess and doesn’t give a shit about it.

Mark finds him, screaming, so loud, so angry that a vein in his neck looks like it might burst.

“Are you fucking insane?”

“Probably.”

Mark slams him back against the wall, lip wobbling like he doesn’t know if he should scream or cry.

“I’m scared.”

“I know. I’m scared too.”

“Do you think it’s too late for us?”

Mark’s eyes open.

“You mean you.”

“Yes. I mean me.”

Mark shakes his head.

“I don’t know.”

Jaebum senses he does.

“I still want to run,” he tells him, and Mark stays quiet, probably too disappointed to speak. “But I wanna run with you.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know.

“I don’t know either.”

“But you’ll do it,” Jaebum says. “If I asked, you’d do it.”

It’s the truth. It feels strange to speak it, after so long. Mark doesn’t correct him. He doesn’t shift away, doesn’t brush away the hand Jaebum places on his face, the thumb he presses into Mark’s cheekbone.

Even in his silence, Mark’s answer is clear.

They don’t run.

But Jaebum dreams that they will. And that's good enough for now.


End file.
